Real-Life Survivors

Biographies

Nellie Bly (1867-1922)
When, as a young woman, Elizabeth Cochrane announced that she
wanted to be a newspaper reporter, few people believed she'd make it. At the
time, most editors believed that only men could write the news. But
Elizabeth
persisted. She wrote a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch
explaining that a girl could do almost anything as well as a boy and
could
do it better. The editor called her in and not only gave her a job but a
new,
shorter name. She would be Nellie Bly -- in case he wanted to use her
name
in a headline.

Nellie's name did become part of many headlines. Most of her work
was
as an investigative reporter. She took a job in a Pittsburgh factory to
expose owners who were taking advantage of the workers, many of
whom
were young girls working fourteen hour days. When she wrote for
The World in
Chicago, she pretended to be insane so that she could expose
deplorable
conditions in hospitals for the mentally ill from inside the hospitals
themselves. She even got herself arrested so that she could report on
how
police treated women prisoners. In 1889 she set a record by
traveling
around the world in less than eighty days. She went alone by ship,
train,
handcart, and even burro. The day she got back, almost the entire
front
page of The World was about her trip.

Simon Bolivar (1783-1830)
Simon Bolivar was one of the great generals of South America. Yet as
he
grew up, no one would have predicted that he would someday be
known as
El Libertador (The Liberator) and compared to George Washington.
Born to a
wealthy family in Venezuela, he led a life of idle pleasures. As young
man,
he traveled in Europe. There he met the woman he was to marry.
When she
died less than a year after their return to Venezuela, the grief-stricken
Bolivar turned his energies to fighting for freedom from Spain, which
controlled much of South America.

Influenced by the revolutionary ideas that had led to the American
and
French revolutions, Bolivar called for independence and used his own
money to organize armies to achieve it. He had two dreams: the first
was
to drive the Spaniards out of South America, and the second was to
create
a unified nation out of Spain's former colonies. When the fighting was
over, Bolivar had freed half a continent.

The military victories that drove the Spaniards out didn't come
easily, but
it was equally difficult to fulfill his other vision. After liberating the
territory of Columbia, Bolivar helped organize the republic of Gran
Colombia (Greater Colombia), an area of nearly a million square
miles.
Though Bolivar was a persuasive speaker, he could not always
convince
others to see his viewpoint. The republic split into three separate
countries. (One of those countries, Bolivia, is named after the
general.)
Though he called for the removal of "the dark mantle of barbarous
and
profane slavery," full emancipation did not occur in Venezuela until
twenty four years after Bolivar's death.

Helen Keller (1880-1968)
At two years of age, Helen Keller was shut off from the world, unable
to speak or hear. Until she was seven, she was, as she later described
by
herself, "wild and unruly," communicating only through kicking,
scratching, and screaming. Then Anne Sullivan became Helen's
teacher, and
she stayed with her pupil for the rest of her life. With Anne, Helen
learned
to communicate. Anne also taught her social skills. A whole new
world
opened for Helen. She read Braille, a system of letters as raised dots
invented by Frenchman Louis Braille, who was himself blind. By
"spelling"
words into Anne's hand using a manual alphabet, Helen could ask
questions
about the world and get answers. She was a good student, too,
studying
everything, even Latin and German. She found she could "hear" what
people
said if she put her fingers on their lips. Then she imitated the
movements
of people's mouths, lips, and tongues so that she could speak herself.
Going
on to college, she graduated from Radcliffe College (part of Harvard
University in Cambridge, Massachusetts) with honors.

After college she became an activist on behalf of the blind and the
deaf-blind, appearing before legislatures, giving lectures, and writing
books and articles. During World War II, she worked with blinded
soldiers
to bring them hope and courage that they could go on with their
lives.

Rosa Parks (born 1913)
It was a fateful moment. Many historians believe it was the real start
of
the Civil Rights movement. Rosa Parks, a seamstress in a
Montgomery,
Alabama department store, decided she was tired. She was not going
to
give up her bus seat to someone else just because that person was
white
and Rosa Parks was black. She was tired, not just from a long day's
work,
but of the racial segregation that had led to that rule. Rosa Parks was
a
believer in civil rights. She worked with the Voters League to
register
black people to vote. Because of strong feelings at the time, that was
dangerous work. And this day, when she politely refused to give up
her
seat, the driver called the police. Rosa Parks was arrested.

The next morning the arrest became big news. Civil rights activists
like
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy helped
spread
the word. They called for an end to segregation on buses. For the
next year
the black people in Montgomery refused to ride the buses. Instead,
they
walked, rode bicycles, car pooled, and took taxis to work. Because
African American
riders made up 65 percent of the bus company's passengers, the
boycott
really hurt. Eventually, the United States Supreme Court ruled that
bus
segregation was illegal. Blacks in Montgomery could no longer be
forced to
sit in the back or to give up their seats to white passengers.

Branch Rickey (1881-1965)
It took two courageous men to break the color barrier that kept
black
players out of baseball's major leagues: Jackie Robinson, the first
African
American to play, and Branch Rickey, the man who hired him.
Rickey,
president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, laid his plans carefully. He felt
that the
time was right. Among the returning World War II veterans were
many
black men who had fought for their country. Why, the African
American community
asked, was a black man good enough to die for his country but not to
play
in the major leagues? The only professional ball clubs for blacks
were in
the segregated Negro Leagues.

Branch Rickey wanted to build a winning team in Brooklyn, and he
wanted
to see baseball integrated. When Rickey had coached college baseball,
he
had seen, and never forgotten, how one of the best players on the
team
was refused a hotel room because he was black. He made a vow then
to
change things. Rickey knew, though, that if his plan leaked out, there
would be those who would try to stop him. So he let it be known that
he
was recruiting players for an all-black team. Meanwhile, he was
narrowing the field down to one man who would not only be a good
ballplayer but have the strength of character to withstand the
pressures
he would face. That man was Jackie Robinson, who had been an All-American
in college and won a letter in four sports.

It was only after Robinson met Rickey that he learned the real
reason he had been called to Brooklyn. What followed was a three-hour
meeting. "I want a player with guts enough not to fight back," explained the
owner, "someone who can ignore any nasty comments and continue playing."
Jackie Robinson was a man who took pride in standing up for
himself. Yet he knew that what Rickey was asking him was part of a more
important fight. After thinking it over, the future Hall of Famer told Branch
Rickey he would do it. The first step had been taken.

Chiune Sugihara (1900-1986)
Early one morning in the summer of 1940, Chiune Sugihara, the
Japanese consul general in Kaunas, Lithuania, woke to an unbelievable scene
outside the consulate. The usually quiet street was crowded with more than
200 men, women, and children. Frightened at first, the consul woke his
wife and three children and told them to hide in a closet. But when he
took another look at the at the crowd, he saw it was not an angry mob.
Instead, the people were exhausted. When they saw him at the window,
many raised their hands, with palms together, as though praying for help.

These people were Jewish refugees from Poland, where the Germans
had been rounding up Jews and shipping them to death camps. Some had
escaped to Lithuania, but they knew the war would follow them
there.
They had come to the consulate hoping to get visas that would allow
them to travel through the Soviet Union to find refuge in another country.
It was their last hope because no other country would help them.

After speaking with one of the leaders of the group, Sugihara cabled
the foreign ministry in Tokyo, requesting permission to issue transit
visas. His reply was no. Two more times he cabled for permission and
each time the answer was no. And all the while the lines outside the
consulate grew. Torn between following his government's orders and his own
conscience, Sugihara made his choice. "I had to do something," he was
to say years later. "I had to look at it from the standpoint of humanity.
I could only be fired and returned to Japan. What else were they going
to do?"

For at least twenty days, Sugihara signed visas. He worked day and
night, skipping lunch so that he could write as many as possible. When the
official forms ran out, he wrote more by hand. In the evenings his
wife Yukiko would massage his aching hand and tell him to keep writing.
"Each one you write means a life," she said.

Then Sugihara was transferred to Berlin. Even as the Sugiharas
headed to the train that would take them out of the country, a crowd
followed them. Sitting on the train, Sugihara continued signing visas, his wife
supporting his hand so that he could write. For as long as he could, he
handed the signed visas out the open window to the waiting hands.
As the train slowly moved away from the platform, Sugihara apologized to
the crowd for not being able to write any more visas. "Sugihara," cried
one man, "we will not forget you!"